


Do Your Worst

by lyonet



Series: A Right Turn After Bad Idea [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Past minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7362745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I have a list of questions,” Arthur announced the next morning, sliding into the passenger side of his car and handing over said list with business-like efficiency. “If you read them now, you can answer them on our way to your mum’s place.”</p>
<p>Merlin looked at the list. There were bullet points and two different shades of highlighter pen. The first question was What is your favourite colour?</p>
<p>“I don’t have a favourite colour,” Merlin said.</p>
<p>Arthur looked shocked. “Everyone has a favourite colour.”</p>
<p>“Well, what’s yours?” Merlin looked at Arthur’s red button-down, one of an apparently unlimited supply of red button-downs, and sighed. “You don’t have to answer that, actually.” He returned to the list. “Do I have any recently deceased relatives?”</p>
<p>“So I know what not to mention,” Arthur explained. “Also, divorces, that’s number three.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Your Worst

**Author's Note:**

> This is another story that came out of the comments - the idea of Kilgarrah the terrible babysitter was too tempting to resist.

“So Merlin,” Hunith Emrys said, once she’d run through the basics of her weekly maternal check-up and had established that her son was eating and sleeping properly, and had not taken up extreme sports or crime-fighting since they last spoke, “tell me about Arthur.”

“Argh,” said Merlin. “I mean, Arthur? Not much to say, Mum, we’ve been on a few dates, taking it slow, seeing how it goes.”

“Why are you suddenly talking so quietly?”

Merlin shut the kitchen door and slid down it to sit on the floor, pressing his phone closer to his ear. “Probably losing reception,” he hissed. “Oh no, look, it’s getting late, I have to go.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Hunith said mildly. “It’s better I meet him for myself anyway, how about you bring him over for lunch on Saturday. Around one?”

“I – what?” Merlin began, but Hunith was already saying a cheery goodbye and hanging up.

The door rattled against Merlin’s back as Arthur knocked. “Are you all right in there?”

They were not taking it slow.

Since their first date at Morgana’s wedding, two weeks ago, they had only managed to go out once, but had had a great deal more success at staying in. Merlin was now intimately acquainted with Arthur’s memory foam mattress (and…maybe a few other horizontal surfaces in the flat. Maybe more than a few) and had mostly taken over the job of feeding Morgana’s gorgeous water dragons, as they'd warmed to him so well. Arthur, meanwhile, had figured out how to use Merlin’s temperamental coffee-maker and his endless supply of pillows had begun to migrate onto Merlin’s bed.

And then there the other Pendragons who had crashed into Merlin’s life. Morgana had somehow acquired Merlin’s phone number and was texting him daily selfies from her honeymoon like he was already a long-suffering member of her family. She and Vivian seemed to be doing a Grand Tour, dissolute princesses on a rampage through Europe; no designer shoe emporium or cheesemonger was safe. Merlin was pretty sure Arthur’s dad had run a background check on him (having overheard Arthur on the phone one morning, asking Uther _not_ to run a background check on him) and that meant Morgana’s sister had probably done the same thing, as Morgause trusted Uther’s judgement about precisely nothing but was his equal in paranoia.

Under the circumstances, it was entirely reasonable for Hunith to want to meet Arthur. But.

“Merlin, are you alive in there?” Arthur pushed open the door and looked down at Merlin quizzically. “Is there a reason you’re on the floor?”

“Um,” Merlin said. “So. Looks like we’re having lunch with my mum tomorrow.”

Arthur’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“She’ll love you,” Merlin blurted. “I’m sure, I mean you’re great and my mum is great, and it’ll be just the three of us, so you can get to know her. And talk. Lots of talking!”

Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’m totally convinced.”

Merlin did not have time for this conversation. He had a job to get on with and an evening to fret through. Grabbing his satchel off the table, he leaned in to kiss Arthur’s cheek, gabbled something about texting him later and fled his own flat like he had a guilty secret.

The thing was, Merlin thought Hunith _would_ like Arthur. She wouldn’t do a background check on him, at least, and she’d probably offer him a cup of tea before demanding to know his five year plan (after meeting Uther Pendragon, so many more things made sense about the way Arthur and Morgana interacted with the rest of humanity; i.e. that there were Pendragons, and then there was the rest of humanity). But it was all moving so _fast_. Merlin had gone into this as a one night stand; now he was going to work in one of Arthur’s shirts. For the second time this week.

“What’s so bad about it?” Freya wanted to know, when Merlin explained. Her weekend plans included a game of roller derby and in preparation, she had dyed red streaks into her hair – which, in the dim ominous glow of the Cavern’s LED flaming torches, made it look like she’d run bloody fingers through it. Everything about the Cavern seemed designed specifically for brooding on troubling things. It wasn’t helping Merlin’s state of mind.

“You like him, he likes you,” Freya continued. “Where’s the problem?”

“Oh, I don’t know, at this rate I’ll be proposing next week.” Merlin could picture the kind of ring Arthur would like, heavy but simple, silver rather than gold, and dear God he needed to stop those kind of thoughts _right now_ or next he knew he’d be on one knee at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Assuming it was still standing once Morgana was through with it. “Freya, he is rich. Like, loaded, he’s basically a prince. I am going to look like a gold digger. Uther probably has a private detective tailing me as we speak in case I talk Arthur into going to Vegas then do away with him in the jacuzzi.”

“You’re overreacting,” Freya observed. “I slept with his sister and sister-in-law, remember, they both seemed pretty grounded people.”

“Please don’t continue with that anecdote.”

“Don’t judge my sex life or we’ll have a serious talk about your recent wardrobe choices,” Freya said sweetly. “Though given Morgana is apparently going to be your sister-in-law fairly soon, I can see why there are details you wouldn’t want to know.”

“She’s not my sister-in-law!” Merlin wailed.

“We are not Georgians,” Freya assured him, eyeing the customers who had just entered and grabbing her tray in readiness. “Your mother will not gush over his ten thousand a year.”

“He makes a lot more than ten thousand a year,” Merlin muttered darkly, which drew puzzled looks from the couple trying to order drinks. He mixed them two False Loves, which did not seem to bode well for their date, and checked his phone as they went to a table. He found a text from Arthur: _Yes, by the way._

Merlin didn’t _remember_ proposing _._ _Yes to what?_ he tapped out hastily.

_Meeting your mother. I’ll free up a couple of hours on Saturday._

Which was no small offer, because Arthur didn’t have free time. His very expensive phone kept track of his very many meetings and appointments, telling him in a beautifully modulated android voice when he needed to dash off to the next thing. The only activities during which he could be relied upon to put the phone down were sex and sleep.

_She lives outside the city. OK if I drive?_

_If you insist._

Another concession; Arthur was very attached to his car and got visibly anxious whenever somebody else got behind the wheel, like the Porsche might rear up and throw them out if its feelings were not respected enough. Texting back a bright _see you tomorrow!_ , Merlin pressed his phone against his forehead and took deep breaths, a technique didn’t help nearly as much as people implied it did.

Then again, Merlin didn’t think anyone had ever claimed deep-breathing exercises could stop you falling in love.

He spent the rest of the night texting Arthur under the bar about the weirder customers ( _this man has been ordering Assassinations all night, should I be worried?_ ) to distract himself from worrying about introducing Arthur to his mother, interspersed with the occasional fantasy about what he wanted to try next time Arthur spent the night. He got a selfie from Morgana of her and Vivian on a mountain top, arms around each other, holding up their fingers in victory signs, and a text from Arthur’s friend Gwen inviting him to have coffee on Monday.

“You are in so deep,” Freya observed, looking over his shoulder. “They’ve adopted you.”

“What if my mum adopts Arthur?” Merlin wondered aloud. “Oh God. She will, won’t she.”

“Young Merlin!” The voice was resonant, imperious and familiar, making Merlin spin around guiltily, stuffing his phone into his back pocket. An elderly man in a crumpled brown suit had appeared beside the bar, as if summoned by Merlin’s inattention. As well as owning the Cavern, Kilgarrah was Merlin’s godfather – or more accurately, the godfather Merlin had inherited, since Kilgarrah had been Merlin’s father Balinor’s godfather first, and for all Merlin knew, had been godfathering the Emrys family for centuries, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke and unfathomable life advice down the generations.

When Merlin had been small and impressionable, and his mother was in particularly urgent need of free childcare, his godfather had come over on busy weeknights to babysit. Watching cartoons was out of the question when Kilgarrah was around; he did not approve of television, or for that matter computers, GPS systems and telephones. Probably he didn’t approve of semaphore signals. What he did was like were stories. Settled deep in an armchair, Merlin sitting at his feet in his dragon print pajamas, Kilgarrah would spin out fairy tales about legendary kings, cursed queens, knights on morally dubious quests and brave sorcerers saving the day. According to Kilgarrah, the answer to all problems was either Destiny or True Love. “A half cannot hate that which makes it whole,” he was fond of saying. “It is but the truth that some paths are fated to lie together.”

“We make our own decisions,” Hunith would sigh, if she overheard. “There’s no such thing as fate.”

“No man can know his destiny,” Kilgarrah would say, with the air of someone scoring the winning argument, and he would drink his scalding hot tea in smug silence.

He was regarding Merlin with that same smug certainty now, as if he had intuited what Merlin had been thinking, who he had been texting and several other things even Merlin didn’t know yet but that Kilgarrah wasn’t going to share. It was a lot of information to convey without actually saying anything, but Kilgarrah was very good at that.

“It is an important luncheon we attend tomorrow, Merlin,” he said, though Hunith would not have told him and definitely wouldn’t have invited him. Merlin met Freya’s eyes over Kilgarrah’s shoulder. She was making a horrified _now I see_ face.

“I…didn’t realise you were coming,” Merlin said, faintly.

“Of course I am. It is important that I meet your young man, and assess his worth.”

He gave Merlin a nod that was probably meant to be reassuring and vanished into the depths of the Cavern. Merlin silently evaluated just how bad this was going to be, and decided it could be worse. At least Kilgarrah had not used the words ‘suitor’ or ‘courtship’.

The club closed at three in the morning, the last patrons straggling out and leaving Merlin and Freya to clean up. She got picked up by her flatmate Lamia (roller derby name: Man-eater) on Lamia’s obnoxiously loud motorbike; Merlin took the Tube to his flat nearby, stumbling through the door mid-yawn and heading straight for his bedroom. Turning on the light, he paused in the doorway. The room was empty – Arthur had undoubtedly been asleep for hours in his huge gorgeous bed, in his huge gorgeous flat – but more than that, it _felt_ empty. Like something was missing.

No, that was prevaricating: someone was missing. Merlin threw himself face down on the bed. “He is not my ‘young man’” he told a pillow firmly, “he’s not really my anything yet,” before realising the pillow was one of Arthur’s.

* * *

“I have a list of questions,” Arthur announced the next morning, sliding into the passenger side of his car and handing over said list with business-like efficiency. “If you read them now, you can answer them on our way to your mum’s place.”

Merlin looked at the list. There were bullet points and two different shades of highlighter pen. The first question was _What is your favourite colour?_

“I don’t have a favourite colour,” Merlin said.

Arthur looked shocked. “Everyone has a favourite colour.”

“Well, what’s yours?” Merlin looked at Arthur’s red button-down, one of an apparently unlimited supply of red button-downs, and sighed. “You don’t have to answer that, actually.” He returned to the list. “Do I have any _recently deceased relatives_?”

“So I know what not to mention,” Arthur explained. “Also, divorces, that’s number three.”

“My parents divorced when I was four, I think they’re over it now,” Merlin muttered. “And nobody’s dead that I know of…wait, why do you need to know the names of my childhood pets?”

“Topics of conversation,” Arthur said, as if his logic was obvious. “If there’s an awkward silence, knowing a small amount of family trivia might help.”

“I had a rat once…” Merlin skimmed the rest of the list. “Arthur, I don’t think Mum’s asked us over to talk about my dead relatives or pets, she just wants to get to know you. There won’t be a quiz on how well you know me.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Arthur said crisply, taking back the list. “I intend to be prepared.”

Merlin glanced at him sideways as he started the car. After the wedding he knew quite a lot about Morgana’s side of the family, but the most he’d gleaned about Arthur’s was that his mother had died when he was a baby and his father didn’t like talking about her. There was also some complicated story about Morgana being his half-sister, and Morgause being _her_ half-sister, but Arthur seemed sensitive about the subject and Merlin hadn’t pushed. They were not at that point in the relationship. Except they sort of were. And weren’t. Ugh.

“Okay,” Merlin said. “Number four on the list, my mum teaches science at the local primary school. She’s kind of a fixture, actually, she’s got them so many grants over the years that the principal mostly lets her do what she thinks is best. One year, she had the kids build a scaled-down wind tunnel with cardboard box buildings to discuss urban weather patterns, it was brilliant.”

“Science,” Arthur said, like he was noting that down in a mental folder. “Number five: hobbies?”

“Mum likes reading and gardening,” Merlin recited dutifully. “She grows cabbages and runner beans, keeps chickens, has very strict opinions on composting. We live near Ealdor Common, so she likes going for walks too. Our old MP tried to have it re-zoned for development but Mum got everyone up in arms, she got a petition together and even talked a TV crew into taking it up.” Merlin grinned at the memory. “Kanen had no idea what to do with her. Got kicked out after one term. The new MP might be a grouch and my great-uncle Gaius loathes him, but at least Alator doesn’t want to replace everything with a concrete monument to his economic ego.”

“I remember Kanen at one of Dad’s parties,” Arthur remarked. “He cornered a friend of Morgana’s so she and Gwen went over to tear apart all his policies. You do _not_ want to pick an argument with those two at the same time. They’ve been tag-teaming the destruction of people’s illusions together since they were about five.”

An uncomfortable thought struck Merlin. “Er, about your dad, my mother may have sent a petition to him some time back.” He tapped nervously on the steering wheel. “Maybe two.”

“You’re telling me this _now_?”

“She won’t hold it against you, she sends petitions to lots of people, it’s practically another hobby!”

Arthur crumpled his list pointedly and chucked it into the back seat, then fell dourly silent. He spent the rest of the drive checking his phone. It buzzed with notifications about every three minutes, reminding Merlin that Arthur was busier, more important and more irritating than other people.

“We’re here,” Merlin said at last, with some relief, and Arthur ducked his head to peer through the windscreen. To Arthur, who had grown up in a literal castle (Merlin would never, ever be over the castle) the house probably looked tiny, not to mention ancient, but though Merlin had not lived there in years, everything about it spoke of home. He still remembered how to lift the gate with his foot as he pulled, to get it open without sticking, and knew not to push the doorbell (which had never worked), instead knocking on the door and waiting for Hunith to answer.

“Should I have brought flowers?” Arthur asked, suddenly anxious. “I should have brought flowers.”

“It’s fine,” Merlin assured him. “Oh, by the way, I think my godfather might be here too. Kilgarrah. He owns the Cavern, I don’t think I mentioned that?”

Arthur glared at him. “Why don’t you _tell me these things._ ”

The door opened and Arthur composed his face into a smile to face Merlin’s mother. Unfortunately, it was not Merlin’s mother. “Gaius?” Merlin said bewilderedly. “Mum didn’t mention you were coming over.” Upon receiving the patented eyebrow of disapproval, he quickly added, “Which of course is great, it’s good to see you, this is Arthur. Arthur, this is my great-uncle Gaius.”

“Hello?” Arthur said doubtfully, offering a hand to shake. Gaius took it, looking him up and down.

“It’s good to meet you, Arthur,” he said, though his tone implied reservations about it. “Come in. Hunith and Kilgarrah are in the kitchen.”

The hallway led directly from the front door to the back of the house and was essentially a walk through the greatest hits of Merlin’s childhood, from family photographs to framed stick drawings, school awards and newspaper cut-outs when a letter he’d written in got published. Arthur looked around with interest. “No time,” Merlin said hastily, pushing him along. He never wanted Morgana to find this hoard of blackmail material.

Hunith was not in the kitchen when they got there. Kilgarrah was, poking at something in a bubbling saucepan like he was trying to kill it. Merlin repeated introductions while Gaius elbowed Kilgarrah away from the stove. There was a short pause, as if everyone in the room was praying for Hunith to appear. She didn’t.

“Well, sit down, Arthur,” Gaius said. “This is nearly ready.”

Arthur gave the stove a concerned look and reached for a chair. “Not that one!” Gaius commanded. Arthur froze with one hand in the air. “It wobbles. Take the one next to it.”

Merlin was prepared to bet that Arthur had never been at a table with mismatched chairs in his life before. Hunith must have had to rearrange the furniture very quickly when Kilgarrah and Gaius arrived on the doorstep, since the kitchen table only seated four, and Kilgarrah took up double the necessary amount of room for his dignity. Merlin grabbed the wobbly chair next to Arthur’s before he could get boxed in by suspicious elderly relatives and pressed their knees together, reminding himself that if Arthur could survive a lifetime of Uther and Morgana, he could certainly handle Kilgarrah and Gaius.

“You are the Pendragon’s son,” Kilgarrah said abruptly. “I hope you are less disagreeable.”

“ _Kilgarrah_ ,” Merlin hissed, furiously. Arthur’s eyes had narrowed, his leg going tense against Merlin’s, and Gaius was looking mildly exasperated instead of actively intervening. Fortunately, at this point the door opened and Hunith came in with a handful of parsley. She smiled at Merlin and he stood up to give her a hug, whispering in her ear, “ _Mum, make them stop_.”

“Arthur,” she said. “I’m so glad you could come, and sorry about the short notice. I’m Hunith, if you haven’t already guessed.”

“I’m very happy to meet you,” Arthur said politely, standing up. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Enough of all that!” Kilgarrah declared from the table, studying Arthur with beady attention. “Sit down, if you please, and tell us about yourself.”

“Ignore him,” Hunith said briskly. “I do. Merlin, darling, set the table for me. Arthur, would you like to come and help fetch the rest of the herbs?”

Arthur escaped outside and Merlin glared at his godfather, who chuckled unrepentantly. “He has a finer figure than his father ever did,” Kilgarrah said. “You have a good eye, young Merlin.”

“He takes after his mother, I expect,” Gaius remarked. He and Kilgarrah nodded sagely at each other, custodians of profound knowledge from bygone days. Merlin could not quite believe it. After decades of passive-aggressive mutual dislike, _this_ was what they were going to bond over? “Ygraine was a very lovely woman, I wonder if he has inherited her artistic taste.”

“Does Uther still speak to Agravaine Dubois?” Kilgarrah asked eagerly. “There was a great scandal when Ygraine died and her younger brother, Tristan, told all who would listen that it was Uther’s fault. And everyone wanted to listen. Agravaine, of course, lurked in the shadows to see which side would rise triumphant, he was always a craven soul – ”

“Have you secretly been reading tabloids?” Merlin demanded. “You don’t know who Beyonce is! You’ve never registered any of my Harry Potter jokes! You can’t even take the moon landing seriously, but you know Uther Pendragon’s _entire life story_?”

“It was a different time,” Kilgarrah said, staring into the middle distance with a bitter sniff.

“And who is Tristan, even, I haven’t met him!”

“He left the country when Uther was elected,” Gaius said grimly. “Grief-stricken, poor boy. Died in France. A terrible business.”

“Oh my God, he fled to the Continent, you are actual Georgians. Tell me there wasn’t a duel.” Merlin raked his hands through his hair. “No, wait, don’t tell me anything. And please, do not pump my boyfriend for details about his dead relatives. Crap, I should have written a list, _he_ wrote a list, I hate it when he’s right about these things!”

He sank despairingly onto the wobbly chair. Through the kitchen window, he could see his mother over by the vegetable patch, talking animatedly while she piled herbs into Arthur’s hands. Kilgarrah and Gaius had moved on to another vintage scandal, this time about Uther’s political ally Gorlois, who had also managed a dramatic and incriminating death. Merlin envisioned the inevitable break-up. Arthur seemed the kind of person who would slam doors. Hopefully he’d wait until they got in the car. Merlin wasn’t sure he could handle the humiliation of being ditched under Kilgarrah’s knowing gaze, let alone having it revisited in twenty years’ time.

The kitchen door banged open. Arthur and Hunith came in with handfuls of chives and cherry tomatoes. “Merlin!” Hunith said, beaming. “You didn’t say Arthur worked for Caerleon Industries! His sister is one of their scientific researchers. He’s been telling me all about the alternative energy sources they’re currently investigating, it’s so exciting!”

Arthur’s face had lit up. If there was one subject he could talk about until the end of all things, it was his job. Gaius snipped chives into the potatoes on the stove and mashed them, lunch was served and Arthur reclaimed his seat beside Merlin, squeezing his knee while he leaned across the table to keep talking with Hunith. Kilgarrah tried to interrupt a few times, but the conversational current swept right on past him as Arthur and Hunith debated biofuels versus solar power. At one point Arthur voluntarily handed over his phone to show Hunith a prototype wind turbine that had just gone on the market, and she practically squealed. Gaius looked on thoughtfully for a while before offering his opinion on Annis Caerleon’s corporate ethics.

After lunch, Merlin helped his mother with the dishes while Kilgarrah re-exerted himself, but the food had mellowed him and he stuck to obscure literary references and mythological allusions so vague that they might not even be criticisms. Gaius offered some mildly embarrassing anecdotes from Merlin’s childhood. As far as the two of them went, those were quite generous acceptances of Arthur, scandalous family and all. Kilgarrah even went so far as to give Arthur a piercing look and mutter something about what once was and what was yet to be.

Later, when Hunith hugged Merlin goodbye, she hugged Arthur too. He got into the car first with a box of home-grown tomatoes and Merlin turned to his mother. “Thank you,” he said fervently. “You are the best.”

“I like him,” she said, smiling. “I’m so glad you two found each other, you have something special.”

“Mum, we’ve been dating for two weeks, he barely knows me. He hasn’t seen me sick or pissed off or badly under-caffeinated. There are whole worlds of annoying to discover yet.”

Hunith gave Merlin one of the fond looks she always did before explaining how fundamentally wrong he was. “I see the way he looks at you. The way you look at him. You’ve found something good in one other, that’s where the best adventures start. Everything else you work out on the way.”

“I do want this to work out,” Merlin admitted. “I really, really do.”

Hunith gave him a gentle nudge towards the car. “Off you go, then.”

“What did she say about me?” Arthur demanded, as Merlin started the car.

“Not everything is about you, Arthur,” Merlin said firmly. “…but yeah, she was talking about you, she likes you. I’m sorry about the others.”

“In comparison to my family, yours is – still weird, but in a good way. Your mum is lovely, Gaius is interesting, Kilgarrah is...well, if you can put up with my father criticising all your study choices like dating me is your new job, I can handle your godfather’s bad breath and riddle games. Why _is_ a raven like a writing desk, by the way?”

“Quills,” Merlin sighed, “neither can function without quills. Unless you have a biro, or laptop, of course, but he likes to pretend the digital revolution never happened.”

Arthur picked one of the tomatoes out of the box and held it up between thumb and forefinger. “Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, but what am I meant to do with these?” he asked. “I can’t cook, you know, and there’s a limit to the number of sandwiches I’m prepared to eat.”

“Oi, half of those are mine.” The traffic lights ahead turned red and Merlin leaned over to lift the box out of Arthur’s lap, dumping it in the back seat. “Tell you what. Come over to mine for dinner and I will show you the art of chucking things in a saucepan. It mostly works out.”

He leaned a bit further and Arthur met him in a quick kiss, just a brush of lips before the car behind them honked and Merlin drew back to drive through the green light. If Kilgarrah was here, he would have said it was a metaphor for the path ahead – but Kilgarrah was, thankfully, not here. It was a nice day. Merlin had a gorgeous boyfriend, a brilliant mother and dinner plans that he probably wouldn’t completely mess up. He didn’t need a metaphor to feel good right now.

Oh, and judging from Morgana’s latest text, the Eiffel Tower was still standing.

 


End file.
